Brosnan, Neeson take a header over 'Seraphim Falls'

Feeling someone else's pain is one thing, but Pierce Brosnan in "Seraphim Falls" makes you suffer his agony.

Bill Iddings

Bad enough that, as Gideon, Brosnan gets shot in the arm by bushwhackers, one of whom, played by Liam Neeson, literally attacks with a vengeance.

But then the hunted turns physician out in the wilderness to heal himself. Wielding a Bowie knife, Brosnan first digs deep to cut out the slug, then jabs the knife in his campfire until it's hot enough to cauterize the gaping, bloody wound.

That odor you think you smell is burning flesh. Although the resulting, primal sounds that Brosnan emits sound as if he's removed the vowels from his speech -- before passing out shirtless in the snow -- the gist is beyond "ouch."

A morality play in which the grimy principals look as though their in the midst of a soap famine, "Seraphim Falls" might be the grungiest Western since the dusty excesses of Michael Cimino's 1980 debacle, "Heaven's Gate." At least it's shorter.

The tone set by director David Von Ancken and his co-screenwriter, Abby Everett Jacques, plumbs the depths that run through revenge and redemption. They tell a tale of loss, in a manner that would make novelist Cormac McCarthy, the author of the gory "Blood Meridian," smile like Satan.

Set immediately following the Civil War, "Seraphim Falls" tracks a pursuit of retribution. Only well into the story does it reveal the justification of why Carver (Neeson), a former Confederate colonel, will go to any lengths to kill Gideon (Brosnan). His blind wrath has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with a tragedy so horrifying it can deaden a soul.

Dispatching the prey won't be easy, because Gideon is nothing if not a survivor. Mercenaries hired by Carver, and played by such estimable actors as Michael Wincott and Ed Lauter, are expendable.

So, unfortunately, is the resolve of "Seraphim Falls," ending with an echo of "The Outlaw Josey Wales." A point can be well taken without being well made. Sometimes enough is enough, and it's time to let go and get on with life -- even for two lost souls wandering away across a cracked, desert canvas.

"Seraphim Falls" is peppered with memorable cameos; Angelica Huston as a potion seller straight out of The Twilight Zone, Tom Noonan as a preacher, and Wes Studi as a character identified only as Water Man. They make "Seraphim Falls" worth watching, if only for their short while. Neeson and Brosnan are two players in a game that is not as strong as them.

The Bible preaches forgiveness. No one around the harsh violence permeating "Seraphim Falls" totes a Bible. They're too consumed with carrying a grudge.